Of course, when you are dealing with a group of people who get their Constitutional training from the Salon and Russia Today web sites, it is difficult for them to understand that this legislation should never have been written. You see, there is already a law that protects the right of those of the Christian faith to not serve those who are clearly abhorrent to that faith.

It’s called the First Amendment.

…

The First Amendment was meant only to protect the Christian faith. When the founders spoke of religion, they meant the Christian religion. They did not have to keep saying the Christian religion because everyone knew that is what they were talking about.

“The bill states ‘a student may express beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. A student would not be penalized or rewarded on account of the religious content of the student’s work.’”

“At a basic level,” Badash wrote, “a student could merely write ‘God’ on a chemistry test as the answer to a question asking where water comes from. A student could also stand in class and say their religion says that gay people are sinners and going to hell, and that speech would be legally protected.”

Just based on the quotes alone, I'm actually not seeing a problem (can't access the story at work). If the student wants to write God as the answer to all the chemistry questions, so what? It would still be wrong, based on what was being studied in chemistry class, and so the student wouldn't penalized for the religious content, but for an incorrect answer.

If a student wants to say their religion says that homosexuals are going to hell as sinners, again, so what? It's their (religious) opinion, it's not necessarily right, and they're entitled to their opinions. Opinions are legally protected, aren't they?

The problem would be when it crosses the line from making a statement about their opinion, and into harrassment.

And people who yell, "HARRASSMENT!" because someone states an opinion really, really, need to grow thicker skin, and grow up. (Emphasis on opinions)

I mean, just because I think blue eyed blondes are pretty doesn't make me a racist.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

"...gay people are sinners and going to hell" It's an opinion, sure, and kind of a weak example of bullying. The thing is, the right to that opinion already exists. This isn't a case of "Your rights end where my feelings begin." This is a case of playing the victim card, first off, with the claim that religious beliefs are under attack. Secondly, it prevents school administrators from doing their jobs.

Here's how I see it, from a libertarian perspective: The government cannot give anyone rights; they can only take them away. In this case, it is the school administrator's and teacher's right to resolve conflicts between students in the way they see fit that is being infringed. Students already have the right to state their religious beliefs, and to protect it is redundant.

Still, it's the threat to science education I'm more concerned about. Being closeted all through school (and then the Army, wtf was I thinking?) wasn't as detrimental to my life so far as having been taught Young-Earth Creationism, along with a lot of lies about evolution.

P.S. For anyone interested in reading the text of these bills, check out factn.org. The website is actually in favor of the bill, but it's just the place I found the text in a google search.

"There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe."- Robert A. Heinlein

Amirya wrote:Just based on the quotes alone, I'm actually not seeing a problem (can't access the story at work). If the student wants to write God as the answer to all the chemistry questions, so what? It would still be wrong, based on what was being studied in chemistry class, and so the student wouldn't penalized for the religious content, but for an incorrect answer.

If a student wants to say their religion says that homosexuals are going to hell as sinners, again, so what? It's their (religious) opinion, it's not necessarily right, and they're entitled to their opinions. Opinions are legally protected, aren't they?

The problem would be when it crosses the line from making a statement about their opinion, and into harrassment.

And people who yell, "HARRASSMENT!" because someone states an opinion really, really, need to grow thicker skin, and grow up. (Emphasis on opinions)

I mean, just because I think blue eyed blondes are pretty doesn't make me a racist.

I think the problem is the people will expect not to be penalized in a test for writing GOD...

This whole week at work has been full of amazingly stupid people (amazingly stupid), and now I realize I was being an optimist. "Surely someone wouldn't feel their rights were infringed on because they wrote the wrong answer on a science test." Then Klaud points out that, yes, they probably will, and I feel my brain hurt a little more. Which leads me to wonder, if someone wrote PURPLE on a mathematics test, and got it wrong, would they be expect to still get it right?

I'm getting mighty sick and tired of the stupid (which, unfortunately, is leading to bigger sarcasm than I probably should at work - but I mean, when I am confronted with, "well, when is that person going to call you?!" I think I am somewhat justified in responding with, "and you expect me to magically know this HOW?").

Ok, enough off topic ranting.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Just makes me think of Adam Sandler's character in Waterboy - where he goes to college and in the biology lesson answers questions with what his momma taught him, and gets into a big argument with the teacher about it.

Amirya wrote:Which leads me to wonder, if someone wrote PURPLE on a mathematics test, and got it wrong, would they be expect to still get it right?

By the same token... if someone of another faith believes that water comes from magical faeries... are they any more wrong than the person that believes it came from God? If one is protected, shouldn't the other be as well? Clearly, that's the logical stance to take, but the people backing these laws are rarely, if ever, logical.

This is true. If someone wrote Allah or Satan instead of God, I'm sure we can all just see the frothing ragers.

No joke, the education in the US is still terrible, and I deeply resent my taxes going to pay for public "education" when I will never use it, regardless of whether I adopt or not.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Amirya wrote:This is true. If someone wrote Allah or Satan instead of God, I'm sure we can all just see the frothing ragers.

No joke, the education in the US is still terrible, and I deeply resent my taxes going to pay for public "education" when I will never use it, regardless of whether I adopt or not.

As a point of fact, "Allah" is just the Arabic word for "God", so Arabic speaking Christians and Jews refer to God as Allah. You may already know this, but I just wanted to say that if this point were made in such a situation, said frothing rager's heads would explodify.

I disagree with your point about your tax dollars going toward public education. You benefit from living in a literate society, and though I'll agree all day that our education standards are abysmal, it's something that you do use.

"There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe."- Robert A. Heinlein

Also, I would disagree with you about this being a literate society. Reality TV, softcore mommy porn, and other such idiotic endeavours by the masses don't really strike me as literate.

But I probably just have higher (and frequently disappointed) expectations. Which is also probably why I don't see any benefit from it. But more, I was talking in regards to sending my non-existent demon hellspawn - I would never do that. I'd either homeschool, or if I was rich enough, send them to a boarding school in a country that has much higher education standards.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

I've got so many female coworkers around here who LOVE that book, but only 1 thought to suggest I should try reading it. The rest are, "uh, no way."

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

I wonder if a student could detail the explicit sex and blood rituals of his satanic beliefs in class without fear of recrimination or even a bad grade. Or deliver a pro-terrorism-in-the-name-of-jihad speech. I wonder if the people promoting that law understand the kind of Pandora's Box they are opening.

I know the intent is to allow little bible-thumping Tommy to openly hate gays in class, but kids in high school hit that rebellious age and the smarter ones can get quite creative about it.

Koatanga wrote:I wonder if a student could detail the explicit sex and blood rituals of his satanic beliefs in class without fear of recrimination or even a bad grade. Or deliver a pro-terrorism-in-the-name-of-jihad speech. I wonder if the people promoting that law understand the kind of Pandora's Box they are opening.

I know the intent is to allow little bible-thumping Tommy to openly hate gays in class, but kids in high school hit that rebellious age and the smarter ones can get quite creative about it.

So would I. And I would expect to be protected by law for demonstrating my satanic rituals too. Mostly the part about the ritual sacrifice of Easter the bunny.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Klaudandus wrote:a student could merely write ‘God’ on a chemistry test as the answer to a question asking where water comes from

"Where does water come from?" is a pretty stupid question for a chemistry test, and for each student answering it with 'God', there would be more writing things like "bottles", "tap", "clouds", "river" or "my penis".

Klaudandus wrote:a student could merely write ‘God’ on a chemistry test as the answer to a question asking where water comes from

"Where does water come from?" is a pretty stupid question for a chemistry test, and for each student answering it with 'God', there would be more writing things like "bottles", "tap", "clouds", "river" or "my penis".

The latter is only 95 - 99% correct, but, let's not count points ;-)Without going as far as Jihadists or Satanists exploiting the rules, what I'm completely looking forward to are the "joke" religions starting to pop up, just for its worth in troll - pastafarian, jedis...

- Where does water come from? - Midichlorians!- PREQUEL HEATHEN!

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.